Nicole Weaver and Matt Bennett in The Virginity Hit.Patti Perret
The Virginity Hit
- Written and directed by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland
- Produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay
- Starring Matt Bennett, Zack Pearlman, Jacob Davich, Justin Kline and Nicole Weaver
- Classification: 18A
The biggest lie perpetrated by The Virginity Hit, the story of four teenage boys who take to a bong every time one of them loses their virginity, is that the first three losers somehow gain access to the magic water pipe.
Zack is a flabby, camera-wielding stalker with a voice like a seagull. Justin has yet to manufacture a chin. And Jacob is a simpleton. Yet the film asks us to believe that, months after signing their pact, the trio all bed scrumptious babes.
The Virginity Hit is another slice of American Pie, one more youth comedy that encourages its cast (and audience) to ridicule a fumbling, well-meaning teenager. This time out, that would be Matt, the fourth teenager, a kid too noble to enter easily into a sexual relationship.
Talk about encouragement - it's pandering, really - the film even rewards its audience for identifying with Matt's tormentors by offering hot proxy girlfriends.
The Virginity Hit is different from the American Pie series in that it's staged as a mockumentary. Sniggering Zack follows Matt around with a film camera, hoping to catch him in flagrante delicto. Alas, the first time the chubby redhead catches his friend with his pants down, Matt is suffering from diarrhea - in an episode that makes it to YouTube. Later, he's captured on camera with a hermaphrodite love doll.
And so on. And so on.
None of this is the least bit funny. Or in any way entertaining. It's just another teenage-clown-in-a-dunk-tank flick. Everyone fire away.
What's so galling about Zack and Justin Make a Porno is that the film even lacks the courage of its perversions. In the end, Matt does the right thing, going back to his sweetheart girlfriend, Nicole. We're even encouraged to believe ultra-obnoxious Zack's family are sweethearts. Matt's mother died of cancer, you see. Zack's parents adopt the little dickens, loving him as if he were one of their own.
That Will Ferrell and his long-time creative partner Adam McKay have produced this disagreeable, on-the-cheap mess makes it all the more deplorable. Filled with rookie actors, a scant 88 minutes long, and filmed on the gallop with digital cameras, The Virginity Hit was produced on a shoestring budget of $2-million U.S. It'll probably make that back its first weekend.
Ferrell and McKay are probably thinking franchise. American Pie had three sequels and as many spinoffs, grossing more than $750-million. We can only hope that for The Virginity Hit's inevitable sequel Virgin Spring Break: Hit Me Again, Ferrell and McKay hire another creative team and a whole new company of actors.
Special to The Globe and Mail